England v South Africa in the Rugby World Cup semi-final was always going to generate some talking points, but the Springboks’ decision to stick with midfielder Mani Libbock after just 31 minutes certainly caught the eye.

With England leading 9-3, the reigning world champions made the highly unorthodox decision to replace Libbock with Handre Pollard long before the change.

It was a cruel decision by the Springbok coaches, who had obviously seen enough of Libbok.

ITV commentator Nick Mullins said; How long have we been playing? Just over half an hour later, South Africa changed their opening.

“Jacques Nienber, Rassie Erasmus have seen enough and Mani Libbock got stuck half an hour into the World Cup semi-final and Leicester’s Handre Pollard is next.”

Laurence Dallaglio added: “It’s brutally ruthless, we’ve seen Eddie Jones do it many times for England but it caught the eye because of the atmosphere as Pollard wasn’t named at first because he has so much more experience and is arguably the best. “best player with the ball.”

In fact, Libbock did not enjoy his best 30 minutes of rugby, with a missed kick in the final act.

Boxing legend Brian Habana believes it was the wrong decision. At half-time he said: “We see that Mani Libbock is removed after 30 minutes, it is a very, very big challenge. I don’t think it was just due to Mani’s bad attack, we had moments when our alignment didn’t work, we had moments when England beat us on break point, unfortunately Mani got a bit of an overload. kick, I don’t think it was the right choice, a knee-jerk reaction for a guy who has put his body on the line for South Africa over the last six or seven weeks.